Listen & Learn for a Successful Taxation Revolution

If 2026 is remembered for anything in Bhutan’s public life, it could be remembered as the Goods and Services Tax (GST) year. From January this year, Bhutan stepped into a new fiscal era, replacing a patchwork of indirect taxes with a single, nationwide system. Few reforms in recent memory have touched citizens as directly, as frequently, and as personally as GST. We are barely weeks into its implementation and the national mood is uneasy.
Scroll through social media, read the newspapers, or listen to conversations in shops and homes, and one message is clear: people are confused, anxious, and unconvinced. Questions of double taxation, price increases, lack of transparency, and uneven enforcement dominate public discourse. The Opposition Party has raised red flags. Concerned agencies have been compelled to call press briefings to explain what is going wrong—or rather, what is being perceived as going wrong.
This was not supposed to happen.
When the National Assembly (NA) passed the GST Act, there was a six-month period before implementation. That window was meant for preparation—systems testing, public education, stakeholder consultations, and anticipating exactly the kind of issues that are now surfacing. The expectation was simple: when GST arrived, the transition would be firm, smooth, and credible.
Clearly, that expectation has not been met.
To be fair, no one seriously believes a reform of this magnitude would roll out without friction. Change management is never tidy, especially when it affects every consumer and business in the country. Mistakes, confusion, and resistance were inevitable. And perhaps, six months was not enough. But what is troubling is not the existence of problems; it is how they would be responded to or how they are being responded to.
There is a growing sense that the government spent too much of the six months selling the idea of GST, and too little time stress-testing its implementation. Advocacy dominated; anticipation did not. Either the emerging issues were not foreseen, or worse, they were seen and sidelined.
As problems surface in public, there is the danger of agencies becoming defensive and justifying every question, countering every criticism with technical explanations. While this may be legally correct, this approach is politically and socially tone-deaf.
Many have said that paying GST to the government is not the issue. Citizens understand the need for revenue. They understand reform. What worries them is the perception that GST—or parts of it—may be going elsewhere, through profiteering, opacity, or weak enforcement. When trust erodes, explanations alone will not restore it.
This is where the government must recalibrate. Not every issue raised in public deserves a defence. Some deserve acknowledgment. Some deserve correction. Some deserve apology. Most deserve careful listening. A confident government does not fear scrutiny; it welcomes it as feedback.
It is still not too late. GST is young. Systems can be refined. Gaps can be closed. Enforcement can be strengthened. But this will only happen if the government refrains from sticking with the posture of justification and adopts a posture of engagement.
Listening does not weaken authority. It strengthens legitimacy. Addressing issues does not undermine reform. It sustains it. If 2026 is to be remembered as the GST year, then let it also be remembered as the year the government learned that successful reform ensues through learning and listening. Let it be remembered as the year when GST was implemented for a national cause and not just because of the need to reduce administrative burden.